Kessler debuted his short at the Hamptons International Film Festival in 2012 and later expanded upon it to write a feature movie script called The Montauk Project.

The show and the original film share obvious similarities, too - Montauk focused on a boy who goes missing and the cop on his tail; add to that a secretive military base experimenting on children and things start to slot into place.

Ross and Matt Duffer, a.k.a. the Duffer Brothers, struck gold when they came up with the plot of Stranger Things several years ago. "It reads, ".set in 1980s Long Island" with "a vintage Stephen King feel".

HHN creators are partnering directly with Netflix and those with hands-on experience with "Stranger Things", including show creators, writers and producers the Duffer brothers, Matt and Ross, and director Shawn Levy, to really bring the Upside Down to life.

A Google document created three years later included the details of the original premise for Stranger Things, with a teenager named Benny - who would become Will Byers - leaving his friends house and entering a unusual world by "an evil force".

His film - also titled Montauk - is centered around top secret government experiments which happens to be a major component of the highly-popular Netflix series.

A spokesperson for Kessler has said of the case: "After the massive success of Stranger Things that is based on the Plaintiff's concepts that the Plaintiff discussed with the Defendants, Defendants have made huge sums of money by producing the series based on Plaintiff's concepts without compensating or crediting Plaintiff for his concepts".

At the time Kessler believed that the idea was dead and was shocked when Stranger Things came out in 2016. "The Duffer Brothers were developing their project years before he claims to have met them".

The Duffer Brothers have neither seen Mr. Kessler's short film nor discussed any project with him.

Stranger Things has become a smash hit since it first appeared on the streaming site in 2016. "He had no connection to the creation or development of Stranger Things". The Hollywood Reporter reported that Harbour and Winona Ryder will make $350,000 per episode, while the youngest stars - Schnapp, Matarazzo, Finn Wolfhard and Caleb McLaughlin - will make $250,000.